The other day Gary wrote, “For Democrats this election year, this legislature is the gift that keeps on giving. Maybe they’ll stay in session all the way to November” – considering by SpeakerThom Tillis’ announcement the legislature is about to return to town and pass the stuck ‘coal ash’ bill, Gary may get more than he imagined.

According to the Speaker, in a compromise the House has agreed to the Senate’s demand that Duke Energy be allowed to petition the Utilities Commission next January to raise electric bills to pay for the coal ash cleanup.

In other words, a week after Duke Energy announced $609 million in profits for the last quarter, and less than three months before the election, legislators are going to return to Raleigh to vote to allow Duke Energy to raise electric bills.

Okay...I think I've learned something. The North Carolina Utilities Commission is not the entity that gives Duke Power the authority to raise electricity rates. I had no idea the legislature made that call. I thought it was the agency. Okay...I see...the utilities commission has to get permission from the legislature to raise rates. It's a new one on me.

Now, responding to the other part of this "Carter post" here on the front page about the coal ash thingy. That coal ash thing is horrible, no question about it. But, the true fact is that it was caused because of two things...Duke power avoiding the threat to our environment with their deeds and the democratic-led environmental agencies pre-McCrory not doing their job with coal ash controlment enforcement and not doing their job in making sure this kind of horrible leak would happen in the first place. Nothing about these facts from Carter...what's wrong with that picture? It happened when McCrory was in office...but it really happened FAR before that. Again...where is Carter on this? I'm becoming so tired of the democratic slant from Carter.

It's a sure thing the people of North Carolina don't have the best lobbyists. Anytime government grants an industry a monopoly on anything, corruption thrives. The free market for energy would bring about much lower prices for the citizens of this state as well as appease the Democrats who hate for anyone to make a profit. A lot of those profits go into retirement funds for citizens around the state and elsewhere. We could force Duke to pay the entire clean-up themselves, then not allow a rate increase, then say to heck with all the seniors who lost a large chunk of their retirement.

Our legislature needs to strike a blow for affordable energy by repealing the Renewable Energy Mandate that has already jacked up rates and will do even more of that in the future. With present technology, renewable energy is not cost effective, and only taxpayer subsidies and forcing consumers to buy it even allows it to exist.

But the best solution is a free market in energy and getting rid of the monopoly structure we now have. We need to do it the conservative way like Germany successfully allowed competition to bring down rates, not like the liberal oafs in California screwed it up. Of course, pushing expensive renewable energy pushed Germany's rates right back up again, so we should not follow that rabbit trail.

To overcome our renewable energy mandate, we need to get around the biggest protector of the renewable energy special interests in the legislature, and that is Thom Tillis.